Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said defense leaders from the U.S., Japan and South Korea agreed trilateral and multilateral cooperation is needed among the three countries to counter North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear threats, DoD News reported Tuesday.

“That includes missile defense and any planning and focus on the nuclear threat posed by North Korea,” Dunford said Sunday during a meeting at U.S. Pacific Command’s headquarters in Hawaii.

Dunford met with Adm. Katsutoshi Kawano, Japan’s self-defense force chief of staff; and Gen. Jeong Kyeong-doo, chairman of South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff; to discuss the threat posed by North Korea.

“Essentially, in the next year the chiefs of defense agreed to improve ballistic missile defenses, all wrapped up with better sharing of data, and to conduct routine exercises to ensure we have a coherent collective response to ballistic missile defense,” Dunford told reporters after the meeting.

He also cited the potential role of multilateralism in anti-submarine warfare, disaster response and maritime interdiction exercises.

The military leaders also agreed to conduct two meetings in the coming year, the report added.

Congress allocated $18.4 billion in total funds to the Defense Department‘s Military Intelligence Program for fiscal year 2017.

DoD said Wednesday the total MIP funding includes the base budget and Overseas Contingency Operations appropriations.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated Monday its National Intelligence Program received $54.6 billion for FY 2017.

In May, DoD sought $18.5 billion and ODNI requested $54.9 billion in FY 2017 funds for their respective intelligence programs.

Both agencies did not provide additional program details due to national security reasons.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are considering alternative roles for the USS Lewis B. Puller expeditionary sea base vessel, which has begun operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet as the Navy’s first ESB, USNI News reported Tuesday.

Maj. Gen. David Coffman, Navy director of amphibious warfare, said at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Expeditionary Warfare Conference that the ESB could serve as an alternative to L-class amphibious warships.

The Navy currently operates 31 amphibious ships, but the Marine Corps says it requires at least 38 ships, and up to 50 to fully address the needs of combatant commanders, the report noted.

Coffman added that the Marine Corps remains committed to L-class amphibious warships as the primary vessel for amphibious operations and for the transportation of Marine Air-Ground Task Forces to contested environments.

USS Lewis Puller could help carry the land-based Special Purpose MAGTF- Crisis Response unit in U.S. Central Command, or support the operations of an Amphibious Ready Group in the Persian Gulf, according to Coffman.

He said the Navy and Marine Corps plan to acquire additional ESBs to support mine countermeasures efforts and irregular warfare with special operations forces, Marines, coalition partners and others.

The ESB was built by General Dynamics‘ NASSCO subsidiary and was redesignated from a USNS ship to a USS warship to boost the 5th Fleet’s operational flexibility.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson has said the collision of an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer with a merchant vessel in August and another collision incident involving another U.S. destroyer ship two months prior were both “preventable,” the Navy reported Wednesday.

“Both of these accidents were preventable and the respective investigations found multiple failures by watch standers that contributed to the incidents,” Richardson said.

His remarks coincided with the U.S. Navy’s release of a report Wednesday that aims to shed light on collisions involving the two U.S. destroyers.

The USS Fitzgerald destroyer’s collision with the ACX Crystal container ship off the coast of Japan in June was avoidable and occurred due to the build-up of small errors that led to inability to adhere to “sound navigational practices,” according to the report.

The service branch also associated the incident with the absence of the ship’s triad and watch teams’ failure to comply with fundamental contact management norms.

The report also attributed the USS John S. McCain destroyer’s collision with the Alnic MC merchant vessel in August to complacency and lack of procedural compliance.

The Navy also cited the crew’s insufficient knowledge of the ship control console’s operation as a primary contributing factor to the incident.

The U.S. Army‘s 71st Ordnance Group and 10th Chemical Hazardous Response Company have conducted the final wave of tests for a new body armor designed to be modular, customizable and lightweight.

The Army said Tuesday the recently concluded trials on the Modular Scalable Vest was part of a week-long series of tests in October at Fort Carson, Colorado.

Stephen McNair, test manager for Project Manager – Soldier Protection Individual Equipment, stated that the Army expects to go into production after the evaluation and begin utilizing the vests by summer 2018.

“We have been working on this vest for the past five years and have since have gone through four versions of the vest and an additional two versions of the soldier plate carrier system,” he said.

McNair added that MSV aims to reduce the weight of a soldier’s load.

MSV is a component of the Soldier Protection System, an update to the Personal Protective Equipment system, and has a base weight of 11 pounds.

The Army noted that MSV weighs approximately 25 pounds once fully configured, which is five pounds lighter than the Improved Outer Tactical Vest that MSV was based on.

The new tactical vest also employs a four-tier configuration consisting of an inner soft concealable armor, a plated soft armor, ballistic plates and a ballistic combat shirt in efforts to make the vest scalable and tailorable to the user’s mission needs.

The outermost layer works to protect the user’s neck, shoulder and pelvis and also contains a utility belt designed to store items around the user’s hips.

Developers at the Army’s Program Executive Officer – Soldier are also developing a new lightweight protective helmet system to supplement MSV, the service branch said.